Documentation

Tentacle is a Chrome extension that enhances your GitHub experience by displaying links from your catalog-info.yaml file directly on GitHub. This documentation will guide you through setting up and using Tentacle effectively.

How Tentacle Works

  1. Tentacle observes page navigation events on GitHub.
  2. When a valid route is identified, Tentacle injects a container into the DOM.
  3. Tentacle attempts to load the catalog-info.yaml file from the repository root.
  4. If the file is present and contains links, Tentacle renders them in the sidebar.

Getting Started

  1. Install the Tentacle Chrome extension from the Chrome Web Store.
  2. Navigate to any GitHub repository page.
  3. If a valid catalog-info.yaml file is present, you'll see the Tentacle sidebar with rendered links.

Creating a catalog-info.yaml file

If your repository doesn't have a catalog-info.yaml file, create a new file named catalog-info.yaml in the root of your repository. Use the following template, adjusting the links as needed:

apiVersion: backstage.io/v1alpha1
kind: Component
metadata:
  links:
    - title: Documentation
      url: https://tentacle.app/docs
    - title: Datadog
      url: https://app.datadoghq.com/logs
    - title: PagerDuty
      url: https://abc.pagerduty.com/
    - title: Runbook
      url: ./docs/runbook.md
    - title: JIRA
      url: https://abc.atlassian.net/jira/

Supported Link Types

Tentacle supports various link types:

  • Absolute URLs (e.g., https://example.com)
  • Relative URLs (e.g., ./docs/runbook.md) (Note: Relative URLs are not supported by Backstage)

Troubleshooting

If you're not seeing the Tentacle sidebar:

  1. Ensure the extension is installed and enabled.
  2. Verify that your catalog-info.yaml file is in the repository root.
  3. Check that the file contains valid YAML and includes a links section.
  4. Refresh the GitHub page.

For additional support, please open an issue on our GitHub support repository.